


Boundaries Never Worked for Us

by Rednaelo



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Robot/Human Relationships, Spark Sexual Interfacing, Tactile Sexual Interfacing, oops things escalated really fast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 16:38:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6813772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rednaelo/pseuds/Rednaelo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You guys have sex?!”</p><p>Heatwave could answer.  He thinks about outright denying it.  He thinks about getting mad at Kade for being ignorant.  He thinks about pretending this conversation never happened and putting Kade gently on the other side of the room and leaving him there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boundaries Never Worked for Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mincedsandwich](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=mincedsandwich).



> A story for MincedSandwich, who is a wonderful person for commissioning this from me. I love this pairing. I could write about them forever. It's a bit different from what you requested, mostly because I can't help but make things get Serious™ when it comes to these two and their feelings for each other. But I hope that you still like it and it still meets everything you wanted! I managed to knock this out in a couple of days but it was really fun to write and made me Feel Things.
> 
> Thank you so so so much for giving me the opportunity to write about one of my TF otps! Please feel free to come to me any time with kadewave ideas, for real, you don't even have to pay me. I love it that much.
> 
> -Bec

It’s just for a night, Heatwave keeps reminding himself.  Griffin Rock will survive without him for one night.  He’s only one fourth of that rescue team and the rest of them are still on the island, ready for anything going sideways.  Heatwave just hopes that if anything does go sideways that it doesn’t involve any large fires.

“Chill out, Heatwave,” Kade says from the driver’s seat.  Heatwave scowls at him from the screen.  “You’re worrying so hard that I can feel it and it’s harshing my sleep time.”

The new base on the mainland is well on its way to full construction but it still lacks any suitable rooms or bed for possible visits from human companions.  So Kade is stretched out across the seats in Heatwave’s chassis with his coat over himself like a blanket.  Heatwave opens his mouth to tell Kade to just shut up and go to sleep.  But he stops himself when another thought catches up to him.

“You can feel it?” he asks.

“Uh. Yeah, you’re like putting off this air of ‘oh no, what if they need me?’ and it’s stressing me out,” Kade grumbles, turning from the backrests to squint blearily at the screen next to the wheel.  “Feels like you’re burying me under it.”

“That’s weird.”

“You’re telling me.”

“No,” Heatwave says.  “What you’re feeling is my EM field.  And it’s weird because you’ve never noticed it before so I don’t understand why you’re feeling it now.”

Kade blinks in the filmy glow that the screen casts on his face.  He rubs at his eyes.

“What?”

Heatwave groans, rolling his optics.

“Think of it like this,” he says, setting up an explanation that he’s already accepting will be misunderstood or even ignored, “communication between is done primarily through language.  Secondary communication is things like body language and facial expressions.  Cybertronians have a tertiary form of communication which is done with our electro-magnetic fields.”

“Uh-huh,” Kade mumbles, face rubbing against the seat.  “So it’s a weird alien robot thing, sure.  Can you cut it out so I don’t keep tossing and turning?”

“No, not really,” Heatwave huffs.  “EM field reactions are more or less subconscious efforts output by our sparks.  It’s not really something we can control.  Not like you want me to anyway.  That’s like saying ‘don’t feel what you’re feeling right now.’  It doesn’t work that way.”

“…Sparks?”

Heatwave groans.

“Listen,” Kade starts, pushing himself up to sit now that he’s entering a full-on-argument mode, “no one’s taken the time to sit me down and give me a lesson in robot biology.  Mostly because we’ve been busy but also because I don’t really care.  But now it’s looking like it’s gonna be a problem so why don’t you go ahead and school me, big guy, I’m all ears.”

Heatwave has half a mind to tell Kade to just drop it.  But Kade himself has already opened the driver’s side door and gotten out, his coat left behind on the seat.  Heatwave transforms and leans his back against the wall that he’d parked against, looking down at Kade who’s staring back through the darkness cut only by the moon glow through the skylight above them.

Kade climbs right up onto Heatwave’s knee and sits there, folding his arm over his chest.

“Go ahead,” he says.  Heatwave rolls his optics again but figures trying to back out of it now would just be annoying.

“A Cybertronian spark is the very essence of their existence.  It is what keeps us alive and is the physical embodiment of our memories, our feelings, and everything that we are.”

Kade blinks up at Heatwave and says absolutely nothing.  Which is kind of a miracle.  Heatwave waits and still nothing.  So he continues.

“It, uh…it also works physiologically to regulate our EM field and help the others around us understand how to behave and react in certain social situations,” Heatwave adds.  “Humans don’t really have an equivalent.  That’s what Boulder told me anyway.”

“Can I see it?”

Heatwave splutters.

“ _Excuse me_?”

“Can I see your spark?” Kade repeats.  “You basically just told me that you have your own soul as a part of your physical body and that is _crazy_.” He grins and knocks his knuckles against Heatwave’s armor.  “You know humans have spent their entire existence trying to figure out if we have souls and you guys never needed proof because you have it!  Can I see it? Can I touch it?”

Heatwave’s jaw drops and his faceplates glow from rapidly heating.

“Oh my god,” is all he says.  It’s something he picked up from Kade and it’s the only thing appropriate to say given the situation.

“So…that a no?”

“Lesson number two,” Heatwave says, smacking a hand over his optics to try and bury the half-horrified expression on his face, “Cybertronians only bare their sparks to those they are incredibly intimate with.  _Touching_ a Cybertronian’s spark is only done between lovers.  So you asking me that just now was probably the most uncomfortable come-on I’ve ever received in my life.”

This time it’s Kade’s turn to do a spit-take.  He lurches forward with such force that he almost pitches himself off of Heatwave’s knee.  Heatwave catches him in time.

“You guys have sex?!”

Heatwave could answer.  He thinks about outright denying it.  He thinks about getting mad at Kade for being ignorant.  He thinks about pretending this conversation never happened and putting Kade gently on the other side of the room and leaving him there.

“Yeah,” is all he says.  Resigned.  Hot-faced and beholden to a sort of exasperated disgust.

“I’m going to hate myself for even asking this but,” Kade runs one hand hard through his hair – it sticks up between the gaps of his fingers, “ _how_?”

“Don’t force yourself,” Heatwave says, not really able to look at Kade for any prolonged amount of time.  So, like, longer than a second.  “Isn’t it enough to say that we do and circle back to how there’s no reason for you to see or touch my spark?”

“Yeah, but–”

“Exactly. So let’s leave it at that.”

When Heatwave looks down at Kade again, it’s a little obvious that Kade can’t decide whether to be relieved or annoyed.  Maybe it was some sort of morbid curiosity.  Heatwave sighs and rubs at his helm a little.  The questions are going to come again.  He’s already decided he’ll answer them.

Kade remains quiet for a long while, legs crossed, arms folded, staring at the floor or Heatwave’s paneling.  And then he finally lifts his head and asks,

“So you ever…done it before?”

Heatwave snorts.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” he says.

“Whatever, man!” Kade’s ears go completely red.  “I just wanted to know if it feels any different for you guys.  It’s not like I want to think about it but I keep remembering about how you said that thing was your _soul_ and when you put it like that it just….  I don’t even know, okay!  It’s…weird!”

Heatwave frowns and his shoulders shift gently against the wall.

“It’s really not as remarkable as you’re making it out to be,” he says.  It’s still really hard to look at Kade.  Heatwave steals a glance at his ears, though.  Still red.  It’s faint in the darkness, but he can still see it.

“Not to you, maybe,” Kade says.  He’s still running his fingers through his hair, also having a problem with keeping eye contact.  His gaze keeps darting back and forth, unwilling to settle anywhere in particular.  In one moment, his eyes will be wandering up and down over the expanse of Heatwave’s frame and the next, he’ll see Heatwave glancing down at him and turn away to scowl at the wall.  His cheeks are red now, too.

Heatwave gives up.  He holds out his hand in front of Kade and with only a moment’s pause, and without needing to say anything, Kade climbs into his palm and lets himself be lifted up to Heatwave’s chest.  He kneels there, his fingers kneading at his own palms in some self-restrained attempt to keep from holding on – touching Heatwave in a way that could be misconstrued, probably.  He already knows what’s going to happen.

Heatwave can hardly believe he’s doing this.

“Just to put your curiosity to rest,” Heatwave grumbles, tucking his chin down so he doesn’t have to see Kade’s face.  “Don’t want you keeping me up all night with these questions.”

“Bad time to mention I can _really_ feel that EM field of yours?” Kade asks.  His voice is quiet.

Heatwave bites back a groan.  What really gets him is that he has a poor grasp on if he’s groaning from annoyance or the fact that he’s been called out.  Not that Kade knows what he just called him out on.  Surely he doesn’t.  There’s no way….

Wordlessly, Heatwave retracts his chestplates.  They fold away, bit by bit and the glow of his spark spills out.  Looking at Kade bathed fully in the light of his spark is the most backwardly erotic thing Heatwave has seen in his life.  He puts his empty hand over his optics because he doesn’t know if he can bear to keep looking.

In the dark that isn’t actually hiding him whatsoever, Heatwave begs Kade to say _anything_ to break the silence.  Waves of embarrassed excitement roll through Heatwave’s field and he can’t help but picture them washing over Kade, coaxing responses from him.  Which is ridiculous because Kade doesn’t have a spark to answer these accidental entreaties.  The desire still exists; Heatwave continues to bite back the sounds of mortification (arousal, vulnerability, aching want) that threaten to come out of his mouth.

“I really wanna….”  Kade’s voice is so gentle and when small, unsure hands reach out and stroke the protective crystal that covers Heatwave’s spark, he can’t choke back the gasp.  It hitches and turns into a moan.  Heatwave’s hand falls away from his face and he looks down to see Kade staring right back up at him, mouth open as if he’s never heard Heatwave speak before.  Both of his hands are braced gently on Heatwave’s spark crystal.   “What’s it like?”  He asks it as if he’s been forbidden from knowing the answer all his life.  But no one’s going to stop him now.

Heatwave’s chassis heaves, ventilating hard to overturn just how hot he’s running.  Kade’s hands are _blazing_ against him.

“I don’t know,” is all he can manage to say.  Kade’s face is so red….  Even in the pale glow of Heatwave’s spark, his cheeks are smeared with blush and it goes all the way down his neck to his chest, hidden beneath the collar of his white undershirt.  Kade refocuses on what’s in front of him, cursing in a soft, shaky word as his hands begin to move in a slow stroke.

“Your voice got really deep,” he mumbles and Heatwave can hear it as keenly as if Kade whispered it right into his audial.  “It can’t possibly feel that good, this is just glass….”

Heatwave doesn’t know if Kade is actually talking to him or just to himself, trying to distract himself from the reality that he’s playing with Heatwave’s spark.

“Does this pull back?  What would it be like if I…?”

“No, no,” Heatwave huffs.  His spinal strut shudders as his whole frame is wracked hard with fantasies of Kade dipping his soft human hands right into Heatwave’s corona, plucking and playing with it.  “You really should…stop this now.”

The hands retreat.  Heatwave catches his breath and after a moment he notices that Kade is actually _trembling_ in his hand.

“It’s just so weird,” Kade mutters.  His hands grip at his pants and tug, as if he has to anchor himself so physically to keep from reaching out again.  There’s a snap of longing that surges through Heatwave’s field and he can see it plain as day when it rolls over Kade.  Those blue eyes flutter closed and Kade leans forward with his lips parted, as if he can drink the feeling straight out of the air.  Heatwave gulps back against the sounds – they still want to come tumbling out – and the want gushes out of him again, tinged with an ache of self-denial.  Heatwave really should close his plates.

But he doesn’t.

“Really weird,” he agrees, subvocals so resonant that it touches something at the base of Kade’s spine and shivers all the way up.

“Didn’t like it?” Kade asks.  He’s chewing on his bottom lip.

“No,” Heatwave answers.  He purposefully doesn’t clarify his answer.  He can see Kade understanding anyway.

“Then why did you stop me?”  Something in Kade’s eyes makes Heatwave sure that any moment he’s going to literally crawl inside of Heatwave’s chest and do something awful and amazing.

“Kade….”

“Heatwave,” Kade says back, as if he was just issued a challenge.  His eyes are wild.

“Shouldn’t that have been enough?” Heatwave asks him.  Or maybe he asks himself.

“I wanna do it more.”

“You don’t even know what you’re doing.”

“Shut up, I know exactly what I’m doing.  You can’t even pretend you don’t like it; I _feel_ how much you do.”

“Kade,” Heatwave warns him, even as another pulse of his field rolls out in affirmation – yes, yes, you do know, you feel it….

“If you really wanted me to quit, you would’ve put me down,” Kade says.  And he doesn’t wait longer than three seconds – enough time for Heatwave to agree and then actually pull Kade away from his chest, which he doesn’t do – to slip his hands back into Heatwave’s spark chamber.

Heatwave moans.  A long, low sound fails to stay captured and hums through the air as Kade’s hands skirt along the geometric edges of Heatwave’s spark crystal.  The silence is loud with Heatwave’s reactions, his fans whirr and his plates tick with heat, voice escaping with every exhale now that Kade has his fingers digging under the crystal’s lip, tugging on it gently.  There’s no way he can pry it open with his own strength, but the fact that his human hands are gentle enough to just tug at it bypasses discomfort and makes the tension rattle through Heatwave’s struts in pleasure.

“You gonna let me at this?” Kade asks.  Heatwave is so keyed up he can feel Kade’s breath against the exposed metal of his spark chamber.

“Why do you…mngh…want it?” Heatwave asks.  He wants it, he wants Heatwave’s spark.  Heatwave’s spark is strobing behind its crystal, wanting to be given to Kade’s hands. He’s being so demanding but his touch is so gentle.

“Just do….”

Kade’s sigh is a cool gust against his internals, fogging up against how hot Heatwave’s machinery is, and that one slip of an exhale is all he gets before Kade’s mouth is pressed, open and wet, to his spark crystal.

“Primus!”  Heatwave brings up his other hand to support Kade as his whole frame convulses.  Kade’s tongue is a soft, slippery thing against the sensitive seams of the crystal, moving in slow presses like Kade has to keep daring himself to do it.  His whole body is shivering against Heatwave’s spark chamber, warm and close. “Kade…Kade, this is…!”

“It’s good,” Kade tells him, breathless.  “Keep talkin’, Heatwave, I can feel how good it is.”

“Kade, this is crazy,” Heatwave huffs out, unable to take his eyes off the sight of his companion half buried in his chest.  He feels Kade’s tongue against the planes of his spark crystal, covetous fingers still trying to pull away the last barrier between himself and Heatwave’s spark.  “I’m gonna…I’m gonna overload….”

He’s not sure if Kade really realizes what it means but by context – by the way Heatwave’s spark is rolling out to meet the touch of Kade’s tongue, by the way Kade _moans_ against Heatwave, fingers scrabbling against his crystal in a kind of new level of desperation – Heatwave thinks Kade understands.  At a bone-deep level, he understands.

Heatwave’s fingers curl, rubbing up against Kade’s thighs, tucking him closer to his spark and with a soft sound – like letting go – he retracts the crystal from over his spark. 

“Yeah, god, let me….”  Kade’s whisper is reverent rather than impatient and when his hands dip into the corona of Heatwave’s spark, Heatwave is lost.

The whiteout is a flood of pure pleasure, bliss cresting over him in waves like the worshipful passes of Kade’s fingers over every memory and every wound, every bit of laughter that Heatwave ever was.  When he overloads, he bites Kade’s name between his dentae and can feel Kade kissing him, the taste of his tongue slick and warm inside Heatwave’s mouth even though those soft human lips are only low within his chamber.

_I feel it, I feel it too, it feels so good, it’s the most wonderful thing, Heatwave, Heatwave, oh…!_

Kade is sitting back on his heels when Heatwave can finally get back to himself.  His chestplates and spark crystal are still retracted, showing the gleam of sweat on Kade’s forehead, where it has soaked into his shirt, the ruddiness of his cheeks.  His eyes are still wide and wild and he grips at Heatwave’s fingers as if he wants to cling to them for dear life but has realized that the spell has broken and maybe he really shouldn’t just continue to follow these impulses.  Heatwave tries to tell himself that he doesn’t have to be disappointed; he doesn’t have to pretend that this never happened.  Maybe it’s a hard question to ask but he’s going to ask it anyway. 

Heatwave raises his other hand and strokes a single finger down Kade’s chest.  Kade shudders and sighs, his eyes squeezing shut as he arches his back against the touch.  His tongue slips out to wet his lips.

“You get what you wanted?” Heatwave asks him in a rumble of subharmonics.  The glow fades as he closes his chestplates, casting them both into the close darkness once again.

Kade grabs Heatwave’s hand and presses his whole body against it, fabric shifting softly as he bumps his hips up against Heatwave’s palm.  Heatwave rubs his thumb gently against Kade’s cheek, his open lips.  He doesn’t need an answer; he can feel the truth in his spark.


End file.
